Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Friday April 03, 2009 @12:04PM
from the more-titles-please dept.

Engadget is reporting that Envizions, maker of the EVO Linux game console, has finally announced final specs and opened the doors to pre-orders. All bets are off until users actually see the hardware, but it will be nice to see a new player in the market. Of course, this assumes they put some time into a little polish that is usually expected from the gaming community (that website, yikes) and some effort into a killer game library. "Envizions say that the console will run a modified, quick-boot distro of Fedora called Mirrors (which can be upgraded to a beefier build named Mirrors Evolution X), and will feature a "cloud" service stacked with Amiga (!) games and an Akimbo-based video service. Beyond that, proper titles will be sold online and on SD cards for around $20." I'm sure they won't forget to send Slashdot a beta review copy with a couple of games.

I'm very interested. Seriously. Does anyone remember the game for the Apple II called (I could be a little off) Trans-Canada Trucking. You drive a truck across Canada, picking up stuff and what not. It was all text based - Kind of went like this:
Welcome! You are in Calgary, you need to drive to Edmonton to pick up some product.

> Drive to Edmonton
Your truck is not on.
> Turn on truck
Truck is on.
> Drive to Edmonton
Your lights are off. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue, eh.
> Turn on lights
Your lights are on.
> Drive to Edmonton
It is raining; your wipers are off.
> Turn on wipers
Your wipers are on.
> Drive to Edmonton
You arrive in Edmonton and pick up your load. You need to deliver it to Toronto... and so on.
Anyways, this Garbage Truck driver still sounds better than quite a few of the new games. I would prefer this to the new 50 cent game.

The console itself looks decent. Not to flashy or ridiculous. Should look good in the entertainment center. It's nice to see they're basically using a PS2/3 controller knockoff. I really like the shape of those controllers. I'm looking forward to the possibility of built-in media streaming support for open source codecs!

No it's not. It a very bad sign. See, every so often a company comes along and sees how profitable the gaming industry is. They then think to themselves, "well, that's EASY! I should get a piece of the pie!" Then they spare no imagination (literally, none at all) in creating the most generic "game console" known to mankind. Without fail, they always copy the PS2 controller design. (Which isn't even that great to begin with.)

Then when they stroll into the market thinking they're going to pick up a few dozen studio partnerships and get about the business of selling this generic piece of plastic. Except, shock and horror! None of the game studios are taking them seriously! Why oh why?!? Don't they see how awesome and moneyful* this venture will be?!?!

Eventually, the company runs out of money and hangs their heads in shame. Those stupid game studios. It's all their fault.

XBox - Buttons in approximately the same locations/quantities + the white and black buttons.

The important difference is the location of the left analog stick.

Every game controller outside of the Dual Shock -- including the original PSX controller -- is designed so that the primary inputs on both sides are directly under the relaxed thumb. Thus you get the face buttons on the right where they are in every controller, and the left analog stick where they are on everything that isn't a Dual Shock. On the original PSX controller and other pre-analog controllers, the D-Pad was in the primary position on the left. For the Dual Shock, they just added the two analog controllers to the existing PSX controller without changing the primary input locations 1) in case analog didn't take off on PSX and 2) to not mess with playing older games. The analog stick was intentionally placed in a sub-optimal place. It stayed that way on the PS2 and PS3 because of brand recognition.

When a new game company starting from scratch with no history or anything decides to emulate the Dual Shock and not fall back on basic principles, this is indicative of a deep problem with that company.

Oh, hey! I forgot about these guys. EVO acts as sort of a clearing house for indie games. Except that their website is horrible and there has never been anything there worth buying. So I've always gone directly to the studios themselves.

If this is the same EVO, I wouldn't put too much stock in their success.

Especially if you think about what they're offering. Operating Systems are quite possibly the least important part of a game console. At least to the user. Developers only care about APIs and ease of development. While Linux may alleviate the latter issue, what is truly gained by advertising a console based on Linux? Because you'll be able to... to... um... recompile the kernel! No, that's not it. Port TuxRacer! Um... hmm... Run you Linux applications on it! Yeah, that's it. Run your--

The SDL stack works, but it's hardly a standard of the industry. OpenGL is better, but it only proves basic competency. There's nothing to differentiate this console to developers. Meanwhile, the other console manufacturers try to supply developers with anything and everything they could possibly need to develop their games in addition to cutting edge technology and a ready-made market.

If you were a game studio looking to make money, which would you choose?

It seems like all FS2 Open and Vega Strike will need is some interface work. FS2 Open might not even need that, I think you can run it without a mouse already. That's two spaceflight sims, one with support for persistent multiplayer worlds (and the other one with an extremely high level of polish.) There's three or four car racing games which I think are sufficiently polished to put out a halfway decent product. Linux means HID means USB KB+Mouse and 2GB memory and dual-core means that you can run Wine and

That's still going to beat the living shit out of, say, Xbox video. Which means it's more than enough to put out credible graphics. Nintendo decided that last year's graphics were good enough when the Wii came out; the lack of HD looks positively dated right now (though it rarely interferes with enjoyment in any way.) I don't see why it wouldn't be good enough here.

Because Nintendo made up for the lack of HD graphics by having a new/original controller. This thing seems about as powerful as the original Xbox (CPU is better but GPU is worse). For the price they are asking, you can get a PS3 that has a lot of games, plays blu-rays and dvds and a lot of other stuff. If Linux is your thing you can also install it on the PS3.

If it has bluetooth (or USB, whence bluetooth) then you can hook a Wiimote up to it. Linux on the PS3 does not permit the use of the graphics accelerator and as such is bread and circuses for stupid Romans.

If it has bluetooth (or USB, whence bluetooth) then you can hook a Wiimote up to it.

But if it lacks Bluetooth, and the console maker neither sells a USB Bluetooth adapter nor provides a properly signed driver for third-party Bluetooth adapters, you can't connect your Wii Remote. Besides, a game that requires an extra controller usually won't sell except when bundled with said extra controller.

Nobody knew "Nintendo" when ColecoVision was out and Atari 7800 was announced. Nobody knew "PlayStation" or "Sony Computer Entertainment" when Sega Saturn was out and Nintendo 64 was announced. Nobody knew "Xbox" or "Microsoft Entertainment and Devices" when PlayStation 2 was out and Nintendo GameCube was announced. Yet they both had strong showings in their first two iterations.

Nintendo has well known game franchises and developers.

If EVO were to drop its requirement for a corporate name, this console could use mods as a selling point: "the YouTube of games".

YHBT. Nintendo was well-known in gaming when they got into consoles, because they made arcade games. Before that they made playing cards, which are game-related. Microsoft was well-known in gaming when the Xbox came out, the Xbox's name is really the DirectXbox (look it up) and Microsoft had already been publishing games for many years. IIRC Sony, too, had been involved with publishing video games for years by that point (they are currently the fifth-largest publisher [wikipedia.org] -- I'm having a hard time finding cites

Nintendo wasn't a huge multinational company when they entered the video game market.

But they were also not a no-name company. They were a 90 year old company when they moved into the electronic gaming market. Before then they were well-known company in Japan who made card games and all sorts of toys. So while not a multinational company like Sony or Microsoft they weren't a no-name like EVO. Secondly, by the time they had come out with their first gaming console, they had built up a reputation in arcade games both in Japan and America. So unlike this company, Nintendo actually had it's name out their long before they released the Famicom/NES.

This thing is going to retail for $380. For $19 more I can buy a PS3, install their linux distro, play all of the games this system can play, all of the games PS3 can play, and also play blu-ray movies.

That's true, not sure if sony is going to open it up in the future or not.

Also that yellow dog ppc distro that's officially supported has a long way to go. They don't pack the current release with an mp3 decoder or flash support (which is turning away a lot of people that try it), but at least it ships with gcc.

There's plenty of cheap graphics cards (including integrated) out there with S-video out.

I looked in Best Buy and Office Depot, and I didn't see a single desktop PC with integrated S-Video. Less-technical end users (the market for consoles) don't build their PCs from parts. In what store that is well known to the general public should I be looking for PCs that can output S-Video without a converter box?

No, you can't. Linux on the PS3 does not have access to 3D graphics acceleration. Not to mention, at 512 MB, the PS3 has 1/4 of the RAM. Also, Ubuntu takes about three to five mutes to boot up and load Firefox and google.com. I know: I love my PS3 for the games and BluRay and I've tried Ubuntu on it.

That this will become a hackers toy, rather than a gamers toy. They're targeting a pretty small market if they feel the need to advertise their Amiga library. Maybe they want to go for the nostalgic and hacker audiences, but unless this brings something to the table that the Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can't patch into their current consoles I just don't see it gaining any steam.

They're targeting a pretty small market if they feel the need to advertise their Amiga library.

The fact that they are introducing a new gaming console in an oversaturated market means they have no idea what their market is. Amiga support just makes it a little more obvious.

This is typical geek entrepeneurship. The product is based on what they think is cool rather than what there's a likely market for.

Of course, sometimes geek entrepeneurship succeeds in spite of itself. Woz thought the target audience for the Apple was fellow geeks, which is why he invented the idea of an plug-in bus with documented

I'd buy this console if I could just play SpeedBall one last time with a joystick that would leave those painful blisters right in the center of my palm as I crushed and smashed my spiked fisted way to the goal and scored to the cheers of the corporate crowds.

Subject says it all: if they are able to sell the system at a profit then they will be wildly successful. Why? Because the machine has excellent specifications for the price (love that footprint) and if it is at all reliable then it's going to be a moneymaker. I'll buy one to replace my Xbox as the system which runs XBMC, since I now have an HDTV and the Xbox can't really handle drawing the XBMC interface fluidly at 1080i (and doesn't have 1080p at all.) I've bought two (ooh, two) Xbox games at full retail; while you might laugh about the $10 in licensing fees that netted Microsoft, I bought the console used so they definitely didn't eat anything there. If these guys can make a profit (any profit) on the hardware and then make a few bucks per owner on games, they're in the money.

Hell, I've been planning to build a MythTV box some time this year, but if this thing goes a couple months past release without a large number of users seeing hardware failures and such, I may just get this instead. Doubt I'll buy a single game for it (though I will certainly put some on there--mmm, emulators) but the machine itself looks perfect for my needs (desires, rather).

Subject says it all: if they are able to sell the system at a profit then they will be wildly successful. Why? Because the machine has excellent specifications for the price (love that footprint) and if it is at all reliable then it's going to be a moneymaker.

LOLWUT? Compared to equivalently priced consoles, this machine is lacking.

If you mean as a generic linux PC, maybe you're onto something... except you can get better hardware for the same price. As you mention, it has a nice footprint, but in all ot

> All bets are off till users actually see the hardware, but it would be nice to see a new player in the market. Of course this assumes they put some time into a little> polish that is usually expected from the gaming community (that website, yikes) and some effort into a killer game library.

But apart from the mystery spec, shit website and lack of games, it's a killer console. I'm sure Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are holding crisis talks.

But apart from the mystery spec, shit website and lack of games, it's a killer console. I'm sure Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are holding crisis talks.

Sony obviously sees Linux console gaming as a major threat, because now they've given us two generations of game console which both run linux, while on neither one do they permit access to the graphics hardware beyond a framebuffer.

Newsflash: Game developers want to charge more than $20 for games. They aren't going to bother making games for this thing when they could make them for 360 or PS3 and sell them for more.

You might be right about current game developers - but isn't there a huge start-up cost to break into that industry? An open console like this might provide a new opportunity (or reduce barriers) for new players to enter the market. Perhaps we'll actually see something new and innovative come out of it.

Well I guess it could technically be considered from this decade, but only just barely. It doesn't quite reach the level of a PS2 launch title in terms of polish, but its putting out graphics that probably couldn't be done on the PS1. Can't tell much about gameplay from just screenshots, but it looks woefully generic.

Not a game a lot of people would be interested in playing. Let me know if there's any games that can reach current-generation (at least Wii level) polish, or an innovative concept that can e

Seriously, what a horrible idea. I don't see how this has any hope of competing with the three consoles that are on the market now. It doesn't have an impressive graphics chip, so it isn't going to blow people away with visuals. At the listed price point, it doesn't have any real price advantage (you can get a 360 for $300, a Wii for $250, a PS3 for $400). It doesn't seem to have ANY new games, much less games that you can't get on another console. So what's the draw?

OSS isn't an answer. Consoles gamers really don't care. The reason people like to buy consoles is to get cheap hardware to play games and no problems. They aren't buying them to write their own software. For that they buy, well, a computer.

Now, I'm not a FOSS purist who's going to curse them unto the seventh generation for merely using Flash, but if FOSS/Linux is going to be one of their USPs they might want to consider their target market!

So, if the console/software designers had any role in that website - forget it.

1. Buy said Linux-based video game console2. Do not play it, nor open the box. Wait for product to fail.3. Sell it on eBay 10 years later for a huge profit

Proof that this works: look how valuable the Halcyon console is. That's the holy grail of classic video game collecting. The more a console is a dud, the higher profits you can sell it later(exception: Atari Jaguar).

Bad example. The Halcyon was released with a $2500 price tag. Even if it lost a significant chunk of that value, it would still be one of the most expensive consoles in history.

With the possible exceptions of the Pippin and the Jaguar, nearly every "bad" console has lost significant value over the years. F-Channels are worthless, O^2s can be had for a song, people practically give away 5200s because of the controllers, and 7800s can be found f

How many more $200-$400 game consoles does the market need? My opinion is that we need fewer than we have. I would like to see more $50-$100 game consoles. I think there is a place in the market for an inexpensive console that everyone can afford, that has some built-in networking for purchasing content and service.

It could be as basic as $50 + $7.50/puzzle game. Plus if you focus on online purchases you don't have to setup retail channels, and you don't have to battle the used game market.Wii, 360, PS3, iPhone, and Amazon Kindle are examples where a consumer device is plugged directly into an online store for buying apps. But all those devices are over $200 (except maybe a used 360).

Specs don't have to be fantastic either, if you aim for simple games that "non-gamers" like to play. I'm just thinking out loud here, but there are a lot of options for the hardware while still being fairly economical. The 600MHz OMAP3530 (ARM) [beagleboard.org] can do HD resolutions and 3D graphics, although I think a game system would have to be around $125 if you use that to break even. Maybe if VIA does a Nano with integrated chipset(System-on-Chip) the prices might be low enough for an x86-64 based console. But even if it was just an SNES with ethernet welded onto it, that would be good enough for a fair number of simple games. And SNES hardware is incredibly cheap to reproduce (I have an Chinese SNES clone that cost $30). But I think most of us would be willing to pay double or triple to have something that could do vector graphics and maybe light 3D.

Nintendo DSi is also $170, and also features internet play and an online store. Although the hardware specs for the PSP are far superior, you really need a good resolution LCD display to make emulation fun in my opinion. 256x192 on the DS doesn't really cut it for NES or SNES or anything else really.

I no longer have interest in installing custom firmware on these devices, and from a marketing stand point requiring customers to do that makes no damn sense.

Was there a burning need among consumers for a Linux console that was going unfulfilled? Speaking as the kind of person who spends too much money on video games, I see no reason whatsoever to lay down any money at all for a Linux console. If I want to play Amiga games, I can download an emulator. If I want to play games on Linux (insofar as I can), I'd use WINE. Well, really, I'd just run XP or Vista, which I currently do, but that's another can o' worms. The point is that there aren't Linux games that woul

All their photos show a typical u-ITX Pc case you can get most anyplace.

Add in Bluetooth and some PS3 controllers and you have the same thing.

In fact it's probably a better setup if some group got together to make a linux distro for a base set of hardware that anyone could slap together for a Open Source gaming platform. Kind of like how the guys at MythTV have created a PVR platform recipe that everyone follows.

Crappy Website [envizionscorp.com] built with a crappy 50$ template in a very crappy manner. Tacky template music. Boilerplate pictures of some office building somewhere in the about section. Crappy pictures of crappy boxes with what looks like your standard Mini-ITX package in them and way overpriced purchase options to buy them. Bets are ten to one that this is a scam and you won't even see any hardware at all if you fall for it.Nothing to see here, move along. How this even gets any attention at all on/. - let alone the buzz in the comments right now - is beyond me.

You mean reserve. Not sure why we accepted the newspeak gamestop was pushing, it's exactly the same old annoying process by which you give someone money and they promise to give you something at some point in the future.

If there is a difference, it's that game retailers (again gamestop) try to punish those who don't "doubleplusadvanceorder."

Indeed. Not only that, you get to play a static, old version of Linux, on static, old hardware, with static, old games designed for that system. Hardware devices are one place I'd like to see Linux and other trademarks enforced, so that their name doesn't get associated with upgraded wristwatches.